Losing a Friend
by eclare4ver
Summary: Stacey is in shock when her best friend, Meghan, passes away. The article says it was suicide. Stacey doesn't believe a word of it and she's on the hunt for what really happened. ONESHOT


**_Ksooooo, I wrote this a reaaallllyyyy long time ago but I decided today to upload it. It's a OneShot, enjoy!_**

_Lost and Found_

_Three weeks ago, on the 17__th__ of November 2011, 13-year-old Caledon girl Meghan Anderson was reported missing. Toronto police spent 14 days trying to find her before handing the search over to surrounding areas. On December 3__rd__ she was found dead in an alleyway in the nearby town of Caledon with severe wounds. Yesterday, investigators confirmed that she was killed by a gunshot to the head. After inspecting the scene of the crime they identified the gun and found traces of only her own DNA and fingerprints. It has now been confirmed that she committed suicide. We are extremely sorry for the loss of….._

Stacey stared at the newspaper in shock. _ It can't be true,_ she thought, _it just can't be. _Meghan had a perfect life. She was a straight A student, she was popular and she never got in trouble. She was one of the nicest people anyone had ever known. Stacey stared at the picture of Meghan shown in the article. It was of Meghan on the porch at her dad's house. Stacey recognized the picture. It was taken on the first day of school. Stacey had been at Meghan's house and they were taking pictures before school. Even on the first day of school, Meghan was always smiling. Her red hair was dancing in the wind and her big brown eyes sparkled. They stood out against her pale skin.

Stacey put down the article and ran up to her room. She couldn't think about it any longer, it brought back too many memories. She didn't have the will power to do anything, so she just sat there and cried. She cried for all the times she went swimming at Meghan's house, for when they snuck into school to get her ball back in 3rd grade, and for the countless times Meghan told her she was beautiful, and she didn't believer it. She cried because she lost her best friend, and no one could ever replace her.

"Stacey, honey" her mom said through the door, "I'm going out for a bit, I'll be back in an hour." Stacey waited until she could hear the door shut and began to sob again. She cried until she was out of tears. When she was done, she got up and walked out the door. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts, away from the world. She walked passed all the semis and townhouses, until she got to the park Meghan used to love. She always thought it was childish, but she went anyways, because it was Meghan's favourite place to be. She sat down on a swing and started rocking back and forth, staring off into space as she did. Her long brown hair was blowing in her face and it was freezing outside, but she was too preoccupied to notice.

She heard a crunch on the leaves. She thought nothing of it, until she heard someone say, sadly "Hey, Stacey." She didn't even have to look up to know who it was. Standing before her, wearing his hockey team's jacket, was Mark Anderson, Meghan's younger brother. Stacey never really knew Mark, he had always just been Meghan's annoying brother, but she felt like she had to say something. Meghan was Stacey's best friend, but Mark was Meghan's brother. She can't believe the pain he must be going through.

"Hey," she replied glumly, "sorry about Meghan". She tried to look sympathetic, but she was too sad to display any emotion on her face.

"Don't mention it." he said quietly, although you could tell he was miserable. His usually perfect red hair was disheveled and he had tear stains on his face. His broad shoulders were hunched and he was dragging his feet as he walked past her.

She stayed at the park for a few more hours until she decided it was time to go home. She had tons of homework to catch up on and she still had to eat. She hadn't eaten anything all day, she doubted she would eat much at all, but she wanted to try. She would have to get on with her life eventually.

On her way home, she kept getting the feeling that she was being watched, like someone was following her. She caught a glimpse of a man in a trench coat, but he disappeared just as fast as he seemed to appear. She continued home, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.

When she got home she tried to get some homework done, but algebra wasn't agreeing with her today. She went upstairs at 9:00pm and laid down in bed. She never actually got to sleep, she just thought silently all night. She thought about Meghan and why she would do it, why she would kill herself. She also thought of the man she saw while she was walking home. He could have easily been a normal guy walking home from work, but he also could have been there with her for a reason. She needed answers, but she didn't know where to get them.

The next day at school, she was alone. At recess, she sat on the grass alone. At lunch, she ate alone. Sometimes, people would say they were sorry or give her a friendly smile, but she just ignored them. On her way home from school, though, the man approached her.

"Hey there!" he said. She could smell alcohol on his breath and his teeth were yellow and rotting. He was disgusting, it must have been days since he had a shower. "I heard about what happened to your friend, she had it coming. She caused us a lot of trouble." Stacey was scared. She didn't know what he meant, but she knew she had to get out of there. She began to run. She didn't know where she was going, but she wasn't staying there.

"Hey!" The man shouted at her. "Where do you think you're going?" He started running towards her. She couldn't run home, he'd catch up to her by then, so she ran towards the town. There'd be people there, and he couldn't do anything to her with everyone watching. Without missing a beat, she turned and headed for Tim Hortons. By the time she reached Timmy's, she was completely out of breath and the man was nowhere in sight.

She called her dad to pick her up and she was at his house within five minutes. When she got home, she tried to figure out what the man meant when he said _"She had it coming"_. If Meghan killed herself, then how did she have it coming? The only explanation she could come up with was that she didn't kill herself, but she couldn't figure out what really happened. _Then why did the police think she committed suicide?_ She asked herself. She tried to think of why someone would want to kill her, any reason at all. Meghan had never done anything bad, nothing worthy of being killed for, anyway. She tried doing homework to get her mind off it, but her mind kept wandering back to it. There was only one thing she could do.

The next morning she woke up, bright and early, to walk to the alley, the place where she ran into the strange man the day before. She didn't want to, but she had to go talk to him. She had to figure out what really went down. Just as she suspected, he was there when she arrived. She was scared out of her mind, but she had to find out the truth about what happened to Meghan.

"The other d-day, when you said she had it c-coming, what-what did you mean?" she asked him, nerves evident in her voice. He chuckled darkly, like he was a sadist, watching his victim suffer.

"She was hiding many secrets from you." He said in a husky tone. "She wasn't the girl you thought she was, she had a past you could never understand." Stacey couldn't grasp what he meant. They were nine when she met Meghan, what kind of terrible past could a nine year old girl possibly have?

"W-what do you mean?" she asked him. "What did she do?" He laughed again. She was getting more nervous by the second, but she had to do it, for Meghan.

"Well, you see, your friend liked to lie to you. She lied about lots of things things." He told her.

"What are you talking about?" Stacey asked.

"She was never a good girl. She was involved in lots of things, bad things. She caused plenty of problems." He said. She was still confused, he didn't tell her anything she hadn't figured out on her own.

"What kind of things?" She asked him, scared of the answer.

"Gangs." He stated simply. That was all Stacey needed to hear to know she was in trouble. "Your friend sold drugs and weapons, but she was always ripping us off. We needed to get rid of her, but we couldn't deal with the consequences of another murder, so suicide was our only option." He explained.

Stacey finally understood what he meant. Meghan didn't kill herself, they made it look like suicide. They probably forced her to hold the gun, to pull the trigger. They could have threatened her with worse deaths, forced her to choose the easy way out. Stacey was crying now, she didn't know what else to do. Her best friend was dead, and now she's finding out that Meghan had a whole other life she didn't know about. She was terrified.

"Stop crying!" he demanded. Then, more quietly, he said, "Now that you know our little secret, you only have two options. You can join me and live a happy life, or I can end your life altogether." He said. As he pulled a gun from his pocket, he held it to her head and said, "You have three seconds."

She tried to stay calm, but her heart was pounding in her chest. _I can't join a gang, I'll get in trouble. _She thought. "One." _My other option is to die, though. _"Two." _What do I do?. _"Three." He pulled the trigger.

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_**xoxo**_


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